Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain opened up about his reaction to what he called a “nasty” pressure campaign from Democrats to push President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race, revealing he was “surprised” by the president’s decision to ultimately do so after a tense few weeks for the party.
Klain, in an interview published Monday with journalist Kara Swisher, said he “respects” Biden’s choice to not seek reelection, but he was “surprised” and “thought he was going to fight on.”
“If you live in the Biden world, the Biden campaign, we’ve been down before. He got crushed in Iowa in 2020 and crushed even worse in New Hampshire, and we came back and won decisively. And then throughout 2021, we were told that we would never get our agenda done,” he told Swisher, adding, “And then in the fall of 2022, we were told we were going to lead the party to a wipe out in the 2022 elections.
“And in fact, we produced the best midterm result that any Democratic president had produced since FDR. And so, I just thought we would do it again. And so, I was surprised when he made the choice he made,” he added.
Klain was a part of Biden’s inner circle as he faced mounting pressure to step out of the race following a disastrous debate performance against former President Trump. The lackluster performance sparked concerns over his ability to beat Trump and carry out a second term.
Klain was vocally supportive of Biden during the backlash and criticized donors who pulled their support of the president.
Stating Biden “earned a second term based on his record,” Klain said he was “disappointed” by the calls to step down from those within the Democratic Party.
“I thought they got out of control. I thought it was unfortunate, nasty, and public, and shouldn’t have been,” he said.” I thought they were doing him a disservice, but I think he handled it incredibly graciously and came up with a plan that is going to work for us in 2024 of handing the baton very explicitly to the vice president and throwing his campaign organization, his campaign resources behind her.”
Klain’s remarks came nearly a week after Biden dropped out and endorsed Vice President Harris, who quickly consolidated support from Democrats.
Klain said he advised Biden not to withdraw, but he believes the president reflected on the division within his party, which ultimately drove his decision.
“I think the president made a decision that he couldn’t keep the party unified and that decision that he couldn’t keep the party unified and that he wasn’t just going to walk off the field and say, ‘Well, you guys sort it out,'” Klain said. “He was going to point the direction forward, and that direction, he pointed very clearly towards Vice President Harris. And so I think that was a sound, a wise decision, and I think he’s executed it extremely well.”
“I think we’re headed in the right direction now,” he added. “So, I don’t really love how we got here, but I think we’re in a good place. We’re going to move forward. We’re going to win this year.”
He acknowledged Biden and his team “took a gamble” by having him debate Trump last month, but stressed he believed it was a “reasonable chance” to take.
“I thought the president, as he showed in the days after the debate, was fully capable of making his case forcefully on the stump, fully capable of answering unscripted questions, as he did at his press conference. I thought we would see that on debate night, and we just didn’t, of course,” he said.